


distant dark places

by kidlightnings (revolver)



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Other, Snow, Soviet Union, Winter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-05-20 00:46:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19366864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolver/pseuds/kidlightnings
Summary: Asra is chasing ghosts, Julian is chasing Asra, and Portia is trying to keep them both alive. Soviet WWII AU.





	1. ghosts with just voices

The wind was colder that day, and the rustle of a flap that absolutely should have been shut against the cold drew Julian’s eye to the front. It was a hazy late afternoon to wait around. Good thing he wasn’t waiting. His eye dropped back down to his work, clipping off the tail of a last suture.

Haunted eyes were no stranger to anyone. He’d looked into eyes that seemed to cave in beneath his gaze. Eyes crying and begging not to die, as he didn’t even know what to say. Those who begged to live, but with their next breath, begged to be spared the incision.

What still locked him up the most were the ones who didn’t care, the ones who took stitch after stitch unflinching, staring up at the shifting fabric of the triage tent. The ones who didn’t ask if they’d live or die.

It was that listless anhedonia that he was greeted with as his patient sat, gave him a slow nod, and got to his feet. “N-now wait- you should wait-” he attempted, about to lay hands on attempting to keep him there.

His patient raised his own hands in a shrug, easy, yet defiant. “I’ll take it easy.. I can’t be in here. Thank you.”

“How’s the pain?” Julian asked, resigned.

He pulled the shirt, ill-fitted and dirty, likely in that state when received, back closed. “Could be worse.”

“Looks like your tattoo won’t be the same.. Hate to see that,” Julian offered.

“Same as everything, what can you do?”

He stood, and started towards the front of the tent, slinging his rifle over that same injured shoulder.

“Wait- can’t you be more careful?” Julian asked, taking him by the other shoulder.

The bright, mirthful smile he received was unsettling.

“Oh? Careful, doctor, you can’t be playing favorites. We’re all going to the same place.”

Julian looked around as though suddenly, accusations could fly his way in the otherwise empty tent.

When he looked back, emptiness greeted him more closely. Only footprints lead away, and snow began to draw his vision nearer.

\----

It was days before Julian saw even the silhouette again of that soldier. Travel drew them nearer to what would be real fighting beyond the odd holdout, or lost soldiers trying to stay in deep cover, failing. And they did fail. He was loathe to take up arms, but his skill couldn’t escape notice.

It was a rueful thought that he’d of course taught Pasha to shoot, and in doing so, had learned to better himself with it.

That had been meant for deer.

The darker thought was that he’d never hope to be as sharp as she was with a rifle.

He hung back, watched for an opening until panic gripped him that there wasn’t time. He pulled, and the crack set his jaw tight, ears ringing. The face he’d saved turned, and he realized both from the pained shrug and the mess of pale hair that his patient was doing anything but taking it easy.

Not breaking cover and tackling him to the ground and out of harm’s way was a test of every ounce of his self control.

The tight grouping of shots that nullified the need came from high above.

Each one had Julian’s teeth almost cracking from tension.

\----

“You wouldn’t mind signing off on this?” Julian heard from behind him, and turned from cleaning instruments to see those distant eyes and a dirty sheet of paper.

“Sign off- ahh- what happened?” Julian asked, taking it and looking it over.

“I’m fit, am I not?” Arms spread before Julian, and he turned in a slow circle. “No worse than the last time you saw me?”

Julian looked closer at what he’d been handed, then up again. Maybe better.

“Your vision?” he asked.

“But I can see you well enough, can’t I? Found my way here.”

“Soldier.. Come over here,” he called, guided him to sit. And, indeed, Julian could see, he followed well enough, settled into a chair. A smile played across his lips.

He took into his hand a small flashlight, shone it into one eye, then the other.

Julian hadn’t noticed the color, had assumed it to be perhaps a blue, but in the light, pale violet gazed back at him.

He took a pencil, waved it slowly back and forth and watched as those violet eyes tracked it. Then, he pointed at the far wall.

“The letters?” he asked.

Of course the inscription for triage area was read back to him.

Julian looked away, then back. “Doesn’t say it’s just for your eyes, says you- ah- keep wandering off? Alnazar, is it?”

“I keep seeing things out there,” he murmured.

“And nobody else does?”

“I’m on watch, why would anyone else be looking?”

Julian peered more deeply into those eyes. Every body counted. Anyone who could hold a rifle, and be trusted not to fire on their own companions. The wilderness told everyone stories.

He signed.

\----

Snow and rain mingled into a slush that threatened to stick slow-moving tires fast as the night rushed in.

Hooves cut cracks into the frozen ground, and it was the rapid advance that was their only warning as gunfire broke out.

Julian slipped as rocks, mud combined into a field of marbles. Weight landed on him, only to haul him up.

 

“You’re just tall enough you’ve got no balance!” was the exclamation that yanked him to his senses quicker than the hand in his shirt tugging him back to his feet.

“Pasha-!” he exclaimed, felt himself shoved against the side of a truck, and dazed in the darkness with only the flashing of light against the hardware of rifles and blades there to center him.

“Yes, Ilya, now stay down!”

He did as told, backed under the truck, clutched the heavy wooden stock to his shoulder. He pointed with no real intent to fire, unable to tell friend from foe in the disorienting haze of lantern and spotlight throwing wild shadows into a slick mess of drizzling rain, worse than an operation.

He’d sooner have performed one by candlelight.

Julian’s jaw ached from clenching it.

\----

When Portia dragged him again to his feet, took his shaking hands in hers, he’d wrenched free to throw his arms around her, and she buried her head against his shoulder, took in the shaking that radiated from his fingers throughout his whole body.

“Missed you too,” she said, voice a soft hiccup.

“Didn’t even know you were in this unit,” he mumbled.

“Just transferred. I don’t think they know about us.”

Julian nodded dumbly. “No.. I guess not.”

“What are you going by?” she asked, pulling back.

“I didn’t even have to change it since last time,” he said, and didn’t explain.

“Julian was never my favorite,” she said as he leaned over a body that certainly wouldn’t be needing his expertise. He pointed with a resigned sorrow, then looked away as it was converged on.

“Mine either.”

\----

Julian could shoot, and when their previous doctor had taken a bullet that rendered them unable to hold a scalpel without shaking, Julian had proven that he could saw through an arm and stitch the steaming flesh back shut around it, even as his fingers were numb, and the rest of his body was trembling.

He hated it. He especially hated it when he knew that with just that much more, in any good, or even maybe a terrible hospital, he could have saved the limb.

More than the screams, it was that hollow-eyed gaze that now arrested his movement when he stared out for too long into the snow. It was the quiet, and that violet that ringed his periphery. The sweep of snow was its own type of silence.

“It’s my watch, you should head back,” came the voice just above it. He jumped, rounded.

“Y-you- ah- you’ve got to-” Julian started, and the words died in his throat. “You’re wounded, soldier.”

Bright eyes closed in a small nod, and lips turned up. “But in the cold, I can’t feel it so much, so they let me take next.”

Julian’s eyes fixed on the faint bubble of blood that threatened at the edge of a gash. It didn’t seem to be from a bullet graze, perhaps not even from the blunt strike of an empty weapon thrown in desperation. It lacked the deep bruising he’d expect.

“What happened?” Julian asked, not moving even as his relief stood sedately, staring into the forest.

“A branch snapped back,” he said. “Wasn’t looking, walked right into it. Silly me.”

Julian held back a chuckle. “Your eyes.. You’re sure about them?”

He was met with no response.

“Alna-” Julain started after a long silence, was cut off.

“Asra,” he clarified. “Even if you’re one of the only people who can say it right.”

“Asra,” Julian echoed.


	2. last place we left off

Julian huddled dangerously close to the fire. He watched as Portia cleaned a rifle, cracking wood threatening to split the butt of it apart. He slung his from his shoulder, held it out.

“Trade you,” he says.

She put her hand out, fingers strong, and pushed it back towards him.

“Yours won't feel right,” she said, giving him a cheeky smile.

“Yours is going to break apart,” he said, stubbornly.

“So, then yours can be the one? Ilya, which one of us can shoot with a damaged rifle?”

He looked away, red cheeked, he'd argue from the cold. “Pasha..”

“Ilya,” she countered, voice firm. “I'll be all right.”

She went back to polishing, and pulled cloth tight on the stock, watched as wood creaked back into place.

He gave her a sheepish smile. “All better? Ah.. Pasha, you could pull anything back together.”

She returned the smile. “Someday, it'll be you.”

His cheeks darkened, and he looked down. His rifle was dirty.

\----

Julian idly ran his hand along the full, soft fur. The cat pushed its head up into his palm, slid against his hand until the tail curled against his fingers, then turned and pet itself against him the other direction. His eyes stayed fixed on the muddy, sharp tracks through partly frozen remains of road.

“Oh, good, you found Pepi,” came Portia's voice through the cold. At least it was clear, that evening.

Julian laughed. “Leave it to you to find the only soft thing out here,” he said.

Portia crept into his vision, red lighting up the washed out background. Her lips held a smug little smile.

“I don’t think I’m the only one,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Julian asked.

She made a curling motion with her finger, by her temple, then playfully fluffed at her hair as though it were far shorter and not tied up, curls pulling rebelliously through every tie, pin, clip that foolishly thought to contain it beneath her hat.

Julian looked away abruptly, shamefaced that he knew immediately, exactly, what she meant.

“What- I’ve talked to him..” and he counted off on his fingers.

“You can count it at all!” Portia teased, voice low though in the stillness.

“I- it’s war- we’re close to the front- everyone’s on edge-” he stammered, and she put her finger to his lips, eyes suddenly deadly serious.

“Don’t move,” she said, crouching behind him and the overturned barrel he’d used as a seat, sight forward.

Pepi wove against his hand, still, but he was frozen.

He couldn’t see anything amid the muddle of darkness, grey snow, and rust.

Portia lowered her gun as a shy stag detached from the treeline and bounded away down the broken road.

Julian found it odd that the hooves were silent, as though at no point did it actually touch down.

“Anyway, you should get some sleep,” she said, nudging him.

He found it a shame that there was no doctor to check over his eyes for him.

\----

Julian felt too tall for a trench, even on his knees. The soldier groaned under his touch, listless, as he pulled out the shiny metal. To his nose, he, and everything around them reeked of alcohol, sitting heavily atop far worse smells.

His hands didn’t shake as stitch by stitch closed up a wound that needed more care than that, but couldn’t be afforded it, and he eased the man back to his feet. He pointed back, away from the fighting. No such luck, as it seemed his orders were merely suggestions when at this point, he couldn’t even hear anything aside from the dull reverb, barrage after barrage.

After that day, Julian didn’t see the foxhole again. He had a staff.

\----

Asra wasn’t someone Julian went looking for, but still, it’d been so long since he’d seen the mess of light hair that he couldn’t help but be curious.

Curious was an understatement.

He was sure he’d have seen something of it if he’d been killed, and the thought made his chest clench far more than Julian wanted to deal with.

Desertion stories also spread like wildfire.

Still, if he wasn’t  _ looking _ , he didn’t know how to reconcile with himself the aimless wander he was taking around the camp, between tents, until he reached an edge that bled off into emptiness. Empty wasn’t the right word for heaps of twisted metal broken by wide swaths of nothing. 

And there, standing and staring, he found him.

Asra stared out into the endless.

“See anything?” Julian asked.

Asra turned his head. “No.. they’re not there,” he said.

“They? Well, the front’s that way,” Julian chuckled, jerked his thumb in the opposite direction.

“I know,” Asra replied, “But I can’t help but hope.”

Julian didn’t know how to respond to it, so he instead said, “You know, you don’t look like the soldier type.”

Of course he didn’t, did anyone? Julian wondered to himself. He’d seen enough children who should have been in school.

“They pulled you out of some college somewhere?”

Asra shook his head. “No, I joined,” he said.

“Really,” Julian more said than asked. He looked at the deep eyes, took in the elegant features more closely, as though he hadn’t before in every stolen glance. “Someone to protect? Or..” The words died in his mouth, but Asra smiled.

“Someone to find.”

A great emptiness opened up inside of Julian, and he only smiled. “I hope you find them.”

Asra nodded. “Me too.”

\----

Come to think of it, Julian hadn’t seen Portia for days, and he was once again wandering until he saw red up in a nest, tucked into the eaves of a hastily thrown-up shack. He didn’t muffle himself as he clambered up.

She didn’t look up, but he saw the small furry form detach from her and all but bound to him.

“I’m glad Pepi likes you, you’re coming to live with me after all this is over, and you two better get along,” she said, eyes forward and fixed on the horizon.

He slid the remains of an old chocolate bar, wrapper battered, but still protecting it, to her. She didn’t take it, so he slid on his belly alongside her.

“You can’t be up here,” she said, voice light despite the words.

“Gonna throw me off?” he asked, broke off a piece and pushed it into her mouth.

She laughed as she tucked it into her cheek to let it dissolve as slowly as possible.

“It’d be my luck that you’ve survived everything else, then that’s what kills you.”

“Not unless you’re very lucky,” Julian teased, and stuffed the rest of the bar into her coat pocket.

As he slid down the ladder, he heard the bark of her rifle, and an almost too quiet,  _ got em _ .

He didn’t know if a smile was appropriate, but he wore it anyway.

\----

Asra didn’t come to him again of his free will.

He squirmed on his stomach under Julian’s touch, eyes closed, then open, unfocused, and breathing halted with pain. He only was like that a moment until he caught Julian’s eyes, and stilled himself through will.

“At least it’s you,” he murmured, too softly for anyone else to hear.

Julian had his shirt pulled up to see the furrow of flesh that cut across his lower back, and it was only practice that kept him from sucking in breath at how close that was to vertebrae, to spine, that it was such a short distance that had let Asra writhe still in his boots.

“This will hurt,” he said, “brace yourself.”

Asra nodded, kept his eyes fixed on Julian, and lips parted in a smile. “Won’t be the worst.”

“Oh, just wait,” he said, as he wet the cloth and began to dab at the dried and still drying blood, not yet touching the edges of the wound. He worked his way in, and after a moment, he did finally hear that telltale hiss, saw the wrinkle of Asra’s brow.

“Not if it’s-” Asra started, but groaned at the touch that finally let some of the antiseptic spread into the body of the wound.

Julian didn’t think he’d have been able to handle if he’d finished, anyway.

“Sorry you’ve got to be awake for it,” Julian said, eyes soft as he met Asra’s.

Asra let his slip closed, exhaled. “Doc.. what should I call you?” he asked, placidly.

It was so disarming to him that his hand jumped, and Asra’s fingers tightened against the table.

“S-sorry-” he stammered. As he steadied out, he leaned close. “If it’s just you.. Ilya.”

Asra sighed it. “ _ Ilya _ .. I’ve got to get back out there.”

Julian would do anything for him he needed.

\----

Portia leaned back in a rickety folding chair. It was hard to concentrate on her over the low sounds of what could only be called  _ suffering  _ \- groans of pain that Julian could do nothing for.

Julian didn’t imagine she was  _ hiding _ , per se, but she wasn’t looking to be found, either.

“How’s your soldier?” she asked.

Julian rolled his eyes to try to dissipate how much his heart sped up. “He’s not  _ mine _ , he’s probably.. Recovering well. Back out, at least.”

Back out, and his back was more in one piece.

Portia laughed quietly. “You know who I was talking about.”

“Because I know you! Don’t- don’t do anything stupid, OK? This isn’t.. It’s not a good time to get attached to anyone.”

Julian sighed, looked away, and then back to the cocktail he was reducing on a burner.

“He’s already attached anyway.”

Portia sat up. “Huh- He didn’t seem like the type to me.”

“Have you ever even talked to him?” Julian asked, feeling himself bristle against his own will.

Portia gestured to her rifle, leaning against the folding table that passed for a desk, piled with papers - transfers, requisitions, records, god only knew what else.

“I see a lot, you know, and I watch out for my brother.”

\----

When Julian did see Asra again, it was under night’s cold cover, following him at a distance back to his tent.

“I didn’t say you could come,” Asra said, but held it open all the same.

“You.. looked like you needed something,” Julian said, voice faltering at his own boldness.

“Come here..” Asra said, voice low, smoky, and eyes so much darker. “Let’s find out what  _ you _ need.”

He pulled a deck of cards from his pocket.

Julian felt a dark fear rise in himself, and he sank into its embrace as he sank to the floor.


	3. hang my coat up

Julian’s dreams were the type that left him not with a memory, but with a feeling. He felt more bone-tired than when he’d went to sleep, and he felt like climbing into Portia’s nest and jumping off.

It felt like he’d been in this camp for years, instead of just a few weeks. Were they still fighting? Were they winning?

If they were winning, he wished they’d be better at it. He didn’t have a clean shirt left. At least, not one that wasn’t clean in name only, and splattered in light rust, faded browns all up the front and the sleeves.

He hadn’t seen Asra in what felt like weeks longer than they’d been camped. He’d barely left the tent except to all but beg for more coffee and more medically necessary supplies. He’d argue that the coffee was medically necessary. It stilled his shakes.

When Julian was told that they were moving up, it felt like they’d barely been camped there a couple of days, and as though he’d be forcing injured soldiers to walk until the end of time.

He’d been through it enough to know that nobody was being sent home.

He polished his rifle and started packing his office.

\----

Being attacked on the road wasn’t unexpected. It seemed to be his luck that it’d be every time he stepped foot into a rutted and slushy thoroughfare that he’d find bullets coming his way.

He raised, aimed, and fired, reloaded, shells falling to be buried forever in the mud, again, and again.

He was dizzy from the sound and smell, and felt himself slouch against a tree

“No- wait!” he heard from somewhere behind him, but growing closer, quickly.

He forced himself still as a blur passed him, hat seemingly discarded and white curls bouncing as he ran.

Julian acted on instinct, gave chase, and caught onto the back of Asra’s jacket, had him tackled to the ground, dragged him under cover of brush.

“H-hey- you- you’re going to get killed!” Julian shouted above the din.

Asra struggled, clawed, and Julian pinned him like an animal.

“I’m- not again! I’m going- I’m gonna lose them!” Asra yelled, trying to turn, right himself.

“What are you after!?” he demanded, pushing down with all of his strength.

“Ilya-” Asra whispered, eyes stretching up as though he could will himself out of Julian’s grasp. “ _ Please _ , I finally-”

“ _ There’s nothing but bullets and the enemy that way _ , what do you think you see?!”

“Who I’m looking for,” Asra finally said, scrabbling in the wet dirt. “I saw-”

Julian settled himself down bodily. He held him as still as possible, realized how strong the body beneath his was.

“Maybe so,” Julian started. “Asra.. tell me about them.”

Asra shut his eyes tightly and swallowed hard. “Gone,” he said, finally stilling himself in Julian’s grasp.

Julian looked up to see a gaze their way, and jerked his head. He had this under control, he desperately wanted to shout. Anyone else could fuck off. The hint was taken. He just hoped no other hints were taken. Asra followed his gaze to the retreating form.

“Hey- still- tell me,” Julian said, trying to bring him back. He released one wrist to bring his fingers just short of cupping Asra’s cheek, then clearly thought better of it, settled his hand into the dirt.

Asra was listless for a moment, then exhaled slowly. “After- I’ll tell you later.”

Julian nodded, his own senses coming back to him.

He gingerly let Asra up, offered a hand.

“Never fought alongside you..” Julian commented.

“Don't make it a habit.”

All efforts aside, as snow rolled in, Julian lost sight of Asra, snowy hair whited out.

\----

He didn't show for days.

Julian acquired cheap vodka after hours of pulling an arm back together and its owner being able to still flex her fingers. His head told him to save it.

Julian hated that of course it’d be the night he was slurring around the tent, pretending to be doing something useful, he’d be visited by ghosts.

He held out the bottle to Asra. “You drink?”

Asra nodded wordlessly. Julian pushed further forward until he took the hint and took the bottle. He indulged a long drink, then handed it back, lip curling in a willing revulsion.

“Seen any more of them?” Julian asked.

Asra settled onto an empty cot, rusty brown stained into some of it, but as clean as could be managed.

Julian mirrored him in a folding chair.

Asra set his hat next to him, leaned his rifle against the flaking metal.

“No.. not since then. I think I’ve been looking too hard. Or you scared them away,” he said, an unreadable smile pulling his lips back.

“Is that good or bad?” Julian asked.

Asra shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what makes me miss them more..”

“Tell me about them,” Julian echoed.

Asra extended his hand for the bottle again.

Julian could almost feel at home in that dusky dream as Asra spun it out, until he could speak no more through the threat of his words being drowned.

Julian’s hand hovered, midway towards trying to grasp Asra’s. He felt Asra’s eyes, bleary, disoriented, fall on the gesture.

Asra stood. Julian started to reach, and Asra shook his head.

“Don’t follow me.”

\----

Julian lay on his back in as light of a doze as he could manage, as long as he could allow himself. Low moans wormed their way into his dreams, and he felt cold on his skin. In his mind’s eye, something frozen, yet lovely reached for him, but pulled back just short of touch.

“Wait- wait for me,” he murmured, stretched his hand out towards it.

Flashes of color cut through the lonely white, but were blotted out before he could focus.

He knew, but couldn’t- or maybe wouldn’t- articulate it. 

Tracks in the snow were filled in as soon as he left them.

His head spun with disorientation - white above, behind, below, surrounded him. Snow was inside his clothes, under his shirt, he realized. He felt it shifting like something alive, writhing, tracing crunching wetness against his skin, and in looking down, trying to get it out, untuck his shirt to let it fall, he felt spun around, like he didn’t know where he’d come from or where he was going.

“Wait- where- where did you go?” he called. He shivered uncontrollably, and snow clung still inside his clothes, it wouldn’t drop.

It was so bright, he couldn’t see anything except close, freezing white.

He felt himself caught on something, stumbled, and just at that moment, a hand closed around his wrist.

_ Wait _

He awoke in a tangle of blankets, halfway on the floor.

Breeze tugged at the open flaps of the tent.

He tasted alcohol on his tongue and memory pushed unwelcome into his mind. He hung onto every word of that hazy paradise, willed, perhaps, to return to the warmth of the world sketched out for him by Asra’s words. That love he could feel the very syllables steeped in as he recalled it.

He’d follow that anywhere to capture it again.


	4. lay down on the cold ground

Asra was missing again, and new trenches were dug.

It was just as well, Julian supposed, as he wouldn’t have had the time to talk.

He was up to his elbows, and had to improvise upon improvisations. The war lacked for no bodies, but lacked everything else. Soon, he laughed to himself at the thought, he’d be weaving his own hair into sutures.

It was hard to stitch when someone gripped onto his arm for their life.

He didn’t say anything. The feeling of icy fingers digging in grounded him as he worked, kept him from the edges of a daydream.

Julian gritted his teeth. The western front was full of ghosts, and now he had his own.

“D-don’t let me- please- don’t let me die,” he heard, strained.

“It’ll be hard to let you with your grip that tight,” he laughed. “Hang onto life as hard as you’re hanging onto me, and I don’t think you’ll need my help.”

The smile, pained, but real, was all he needed. He worked.

He snipped the tails off. “Easy going from here,” he said, straightened.

When the grip didn’t release, he settled back down into a chair. He could wait until the next body came to him, for now.

He waved over an assistant. “Something for the pain,” he asked, “and water.”

At the hand shortly held out to him, he laughed.

“For her, not me.”

\----

Julian guided Portia’s hands threading needle through ragged edges.

“Ilya.. you’re the only good surgeon out here, can’t you take better care of yourself?” she asked, edged teasing.

He laughed. “It’s just a trip, you say it like I’m out here lacerating myself for my own enjoyment. I’ll save that for when I’m back home.”

He playfully wilted under her glare.

“It is pretty bad, though,” he said, looking at the deep line that she was pulling closed.

“You seriously avoid death in active combat and then nearly run yourself through on your own furniture? Are you sleeping enough?”

“Sleeping as much as they’ll let me,” he responded.

She leveled him with a frank gaze. “Really? Or as much as  _ you’ll _ let you? Do I have to bribe one of your staff into tying you down?”

He almost sat back until he realized she was still needle-deep in his shoulder.

“Hey-” she said, “you’re worse than your patients.”

“And you’re better than some of my staff.”

Portia inclined her head towards her rifle. “Steady hands.”

“Well, if you ever get tired of it-”

She shook her head. “Someone’s gotta be looking out for you.”

“Who’s looking out for you?” he asked. That increasingly comfortable darkness coiled in his stomach.

She cut the ends of the stitches. “Good as new?”

Julian nodded absently, as though about to doze.

He finally did sit back as a familiar furred side rubbed at his legs. He dropped his hand idly to allow Pepi to pet herself against it.

\----

Julian tied off the bandage loosely, enough to ensure that the gauze was held in place, but not so much to cause any trouble with circulation. The bruising looked worse, he was sure, even than the wound felt. At least, than it felt for now. If the soldier was lucky, he supposed, the cold would help with the swelling with no action needed on his part.

Much harder and he imagined he’d be piecing together a nasty fracture instead of just broken, darkened and weeping skin. Hairline fractures, though, he could only advise that the bones be spared strain.

Sparing the strain from a soldier’s arm that held a rifle?

Ludicrous.

Painkillers, and instructions not to shock it too severely and to let it heal.

Joking suggestions, Julian supposed.

\----

Julian bit his lip, pointed his rifle up. Was he the only one seeing this? The plane staggered in air. They weren’t aware of any training, any exercises, any bombers meant to be flying over them. He exhaled, and fired, but his shot went wide as a hand jerked him down.

“Don’t-!” he heard Portia call. “It’s one of ours!”

Julian exclaimed, cursed as he could just make out the blackened edges of the star.

“It’s coming down!” Portia exclaimed, “Better see if anyone’s alive!”

Both ran in line with the trajectory, but falling behind, quickly, as it seemed to hurtle towards the ground at a terrifying pace. The nose tipped up, and as they reached each other, the wheels, Julian was surprised to see not crumple but instead drag into the ground. In his mind’s eye, he saw it go end over end rather than the deep furrows left behind it as they struggled to catch up.

A heaving body rose from the divot of cockpit and started to climb over the side, but lost grip and tumbled into the steaming ground. Smoke rose against the dawn.

Portia arrived first, and all but slid under the body, tugging arms, legs, over her shoulders. Julian could only watch ineffectually as she had a human slung across her back like a yearling goat, and was moving then almost in slow motion from sparking fire.

“W-what if there’s any-” he started, and Portia cut him off.

“Skin left on their body because a plane didn’t explode on ‘em?”

And they both ran as the plane did explode.

\----

An examination proved to Julian that there were none of the spinal injuries he’d been worried for on their pilot. Just as well, since an evac like that would have finalized them.

Surprisingly steady hands pulled off a helmet once on the exam table, cot, whatever one wanted to call it. Julian moved to stop the motion, but it was too quick. Tightly pinned up yet vividly, beautifully hued hair drew his vision magnetically, and he heard Portia gasp.

“How’s your head?” he asked, bringing himself back to normalcy. Portia shut her mouth.

“Unfortunately, better than my flightmate’s,” she responded, a frown cutting across her brow and a wrinkle in her lip. The accent was far too refined for a regular pilot.

Julian hadn’t seen another rider in the plane in the precious few minutes before it had gone up, but he also hadn’t been looking.

The sun was up and shining over his guiding flexes of arms, legs, ensuring every bone still bent the way it should, and definitely not the way it shouldn’t.

“You should stay a while, so we can make sure nothing else comes up.. Didn’t hear of any pilots coming over,” he commented as he finished up.

The pull returned to her lip. “I should be reporting back,” she said and started to stand.

Julian nearly put a hand to her shoulder, but Portia did first. “You came down hard! You should rest, we can send a communication-”

“You don’t have that kind of clearance,” she said, pushing back, and standing. She swayed slightly, but neither Portia nor Julian moved to stop her again as she strode into the fresh powder that had come in over the night.

Julian finally shifted his gaze. “Need to stop getting the type of patients that keep walking out on-” he trailed off, noting her unbroken stare.

“Your soldier, huh?” he asked, smile coming to his lips.

\----

Julian had been so rattled from watching the plane come down that he’d actually retired to his tent that evening and left things in the hands of his staff, capable or not. He had the traces of a swallow or two left, he supposed, though he was loathe to let it go.

The sharp tang of vodka burned in his throat as he walked, flakes landing on his hair, shoulders. The liquor left him with all burn and none of the pleasant looseness he was after, so he was uncomfortably sober to see that rumple of hair and eyes so vividly vacant that caught his. It was like staring into a bright and yet empty woods.

Asra gave him an easy smile. “Chasing something?” he asked.

Julian shook his head. “You?”

“Thought I saw a fox walking around,” he said, “shouldn’t you be somewhere warmer?”

Julian stood still, peered into Asra’s eyes. “It’s too cold everywhere.”

“And lonely,” Asra said so softly that Julian couldn’t be certain he’d heard correctly.

“Why- don’t you- you could come back with- ah- you feel like showing me more of that- magic or whatever-?” Julian said, hushed and rushed.

Asra met him with a smile. “Magic or whatever? Careful, they’ll say you’re consorting with witches.”

Julain knew nobody would say a thing about him or to him. A dangerous sort of security bred a reckless comfort.

“My place or-” he started, and Asra cut him off.

“Mine. I have the cards,” Asra said. The turn of his lips was filthy.

Julian didn’t know if he wanted to be reading too much into it, or if he didn’t.

Candles cast long shadows in the night, Julian found, and that a reading was best done by touch and feeling.

The only thing catching the light after long enough was the sheen of eyes drawn wide and a halo of hair above him.

He could have bitten clean through his own lip in desperation had his mouth not been otherwise occupied.


End file.
